Stress Followed by Relief

Any spare time this week has been taken up concentrating on and preparing for what was to occur yesterday evening.  This was the first livestream of 24 sessions in hourly timeslots from around the world in the NMRA-X live stream to the masses via the NMRA USA Facebook page.

Agenda for Saturday/Sunday's NMRA Live stream event.

I think I was asked just over a week ago to participate.  That started the brain ticking over.  What was I to present?  How was I do to it?  Where was I to do it from?  So last Saturday I got a wifi extender from Jaycar and set it up in the shed.  So my laptop could then get internet access when it was located in the shed.  I had a previously created a PowerPoint presentation that I had given to my team at work about what secret business actually gets transacted in the shed.  This was 20 slides, with 20 seconds to talk about each slide.  The team loved it and feedback spread around the organisation.  This was the basis of my presentation on Saturday evening.  So the number of slides were doubled and a few items changed.  Photos in the presentation featuring locations were updated as the trackage in some locations has evolved over the last 2 years when the original presentation was first created. 

I got out my “spy camera” that is suitable to be positioned on a flat car – container flat – and pushed around the layout.  But that camera would not charge and then issued an error after a minute or two of charging.  I asked around my close mates and they advised that they either did not have a “spy camera” or theirs was in the same boat and was consigned to the bin.  Mine had not been used for almost 8 years.  I found the next evolution of these cameras on eBay with the help of PK.  So I ordered one on Monday night.  Would it get here by Friday so I could use it and have some more current footage of the layout for Saturday evening’s presentation?  It was only coming from Sydney.  Surely it would!  You all knew the answer.  No chance like a snowflakes chance in hell.  But on Friday night another mate posted to our private Facebook modelling group some shots of his layout from his version of a spy camera on a flat wagon pushed in front of his loco.  This bloke had a “spy camera”!  So I made arrangements to scoot (don’t say anything PK) over to Jeff’s place and borrow his camera early on Saturday morning.  What a mate!

So I came home, put the camera on a flat car and then started running the car around the layout.  The first trial trip was from Grafton Yard to Cassino.  I checked the footage.  It was good, except there was no sound.  Damn!  Anyway I then proceeded to run the train all the way to South Brisbane Interstate Platform.  The only issue was running through the Running Creek area after Border Loop and before The Risk.  The train just stopped in a hidden section of track.  The loco derailed.  The camera fell off the wagon.  I think it hit the tunnel portal upon exit of the hidden section.  The wagon derailed many time in a very extreme reach area.  The wagon and loco derailed again and the camera fell off just before reaching the Risk.  So I restarted videoing after the troublesome section, and I just left that section of footage out.  I will eventually go back and investigate that section of track when I’m in the mood.  However, today I did look at my "Inspection Car" that houses the camera.  There is no bogie movement.  The screw was too tight.  So I loosened that up a bit so next time I expect to get better results.

Now to make matters worse, when I checked the Internet access in the morning sitting in the shed, I could not connect to the Internet.  My wifi extender would not work.  I could not get the internet.  I did everything I could think of.  I set it up again about 5 times.  Nothing worked.  That is when I need access to a good "plumber".  That is a work joke!  I am not a plumber.  I work with some of brightest network and security guys in Australia and I’d like to have one of them on tap when things go bad at home.  I can’t say what they actually do, but together, we can do practically anything.  Actually I sort of do have a plumber on tap.  Just up the road in the next suburb, “And Son” or “Raymondo the Magnificent” as we call him is almost in this tier of category.  He is in our local modelling group – the Tuesday Nighters.  He is also a go to man at work for network issues.  But I persisted alone.  I could just get my house wifi in the shed, but at 1 bar of signal, I thought the streaming of a slide show and any videos would be very bad in quality for the viewers around the world, and the network could possibly give up the ghost at anytime.  Anyway, I moved the location of the wifi extender in the shed, and everything came good.  Damn technology.

On Friday night the Australian contingent for the presentations (4 from Queensland and one from NSW) and some of the people assisting with the preparations and the event were online together discussing, showing and testing bits of their presentations.  So this week’s worth of stress seemed to be for no reason at all, as everything was in readiness.  At this stage my shed wifi was fantastic.

On Saturday afternoon, I logged on, saw a few mates online, and watched the Australian content.  As my presentation time came around, I logged onto the chat room and began my presentation.  About 15 minutes into the preso, the PC that streamed to Facebook downstream from my place got a norton’s violation.  So normal services were interrupted while that was fixed, and then we resumed the PowerPoint presentation and then showed the 6 video’s that ran for about 20 minutes and showed the train trip running from Grafton Yard to South Brisbane Interstate.  I watched the next session and then resumed watching this morning and after 26 hours of broadcasting the stream finally ended around 11:00am this morning.  Eventually the presentations will be cut down with the downtime where the change over of presenters is cut out and this will be available on YouTube in a few weeks.

It was a great show.  You could see the friendly banter of the team from the UK, USA and Australia that put this together.  I was in stitches at times.  Great work by everyone.  So now I feel relief.  Well when you have just over 7 days to plan and prepare a presentation to the world, out of the blue, it will create a bit of stress.  So my original plan for this weekend to have a box assembled for the station building at Kyogle by this today has not progressed at all.  I’m sort of feeling exhausted right now.  So maybe that is now next week’s goal.

I did however do some tinkering in the shed this arvo.  I had a 12mm curve point sitting around unused.  Today I finally found a locations for it.  At the far end of Acacia Ridge Narrow Gauge Yard, I can put this into a headshunt and create another short 600mm siding.  That is a location for my growing fleet of narrow gauge wagons.

The Great Plans Come to Nothing

This weekend I had planed to try and build the Kyogle Station building.  I read somewhere in an article on Kyogle that the station building was an A3 model.  I can tell you it certainly was not.  If only I studied the plans a bit more as I have them in a NSW book of all the A Series stations in a bit more detail.  I thought that the A3 Skillion roofed building might have been different to the A3 Standard Design version, as my A3 standard plan was not what Kyogle looked like.  But upon closer investigation the A4 version is a closer starting point.  The station building at Kyogle looks like it has had additions made to a standard A4 Skillion Roofed Station building at each end of the building.  These additions are quite evident in the close up photos I have which show a larger board size on the additions compared to the original building's construction.  It is obvious on both the front and back photos of the building.

I went through my styrene collection and found some 1.5mm spaced styrene grooves to represent the weatherboard sizes for the original building.  Unfortunately I could not get a version that had 1.8mm spaced grooves.  The next size up is 2mm.  I think I can fudge the different board spacing via other methods.

Anyway, my weekend building activities started when I was able to obtain a copy of the A4 plan off my mate Cliff.  I already had original A1, A2 and A8 station building Data Sheet plans, but no A3 and A4 station buildings.

My intention was to complete the building by today.  However, the best laid plans always get thrown to the wind.  I instead had to do some other planning for my son doing home schooling from this week, with the dining room table being mostly cleared of my modelling junk.  I had being leaving boxes of modelling projects on the table over the last few years.  I’m sure the boss is now pleased the table is now clear, except that my son will now take up residence from tomorrow for at least 5 weeks.  I also set up a wifi extender out into the shed.  So I can now run a Skype session from the shed if I so choose to.  I might try to run this week's team meeting for work from that location.

Anyway, today, I at least cut out the sides of the station building and marked up where the doors and window opening are to go.  I still have to cut the openings out.  As the plans do not show the extensions at either end, I have to scale off the photos that I have in my possession for this unknown bits.  Hopefully by next weekend I will have a basic box assembled.

My future plans are to also get around to actually painting the various other scratch built station buildings I have laying around the layout when I am ready to paint this building.  Maybe the week after.

Kyogle Stairs and Drain - a Small Modelling Project

Over the long weekend, I decided that I would spend some time trying to reproduce a scene from a photo that I saw on one of the NSW facebook pages – actually NSWR Diesel Era Modelling.  It was a great little photo of a container wagon in the loop at Kyogle posted by Steve McElroy on Dec 16 2019.  It shows a WFX wagon in Jan 1994, but what I was interested in was a set of stairs down from the track level to a walkway near Kyogle Station and there was a water drain pipe coming out just next to it.  This location was next the track near the station and the water flows downhill to a bit of swamp and then makes its way to the Upper Richmond River not far away.

I wanted to try and replicate this little scene on the layout.  The viewer will be a judge to how well I did it.  It was just a coincidence that I had a container train sitting on the main when I undertook the work.

I present Steve McElroy’s photo.

A photo of a container wagon in the loop at Kyogle posted by Steve McElroy on Dec 16 2019 in NSWR Diesel Era Modelling Facebook group.  It shows a WFX wagon in Jan 1994 at Kyogle.

So I cut away some of the existing plaster near the front fascia, and then got the plaster out and mixed up a small batch and then re-sculptured the area.  I installed an already prepared water pipe and cut off a bit of plastic stairs that I had in a kit and installed them. I painted the area a brown colour and then added dirt, and various scatters.  I added a few trees - different from the original photo, a couple of bushes and a few flowering weeds.  I made a walkway out of some sleepers that I had previously made and ran these sleepers next to the loop road in the crossing loop.   This allowed staff to get to the stairs more safely than just walking on the ballast.  Lastly some rocks were added to the creek and a bit of water was added.  So today,  to complete the scene, I decided to add the chain wire fence into the scene that was evident in the original photo as you can’t have people falling into the drain, can you.  I then bent up and glued together some pipe handrails from styrene.  To top the scene off, I thought I would add a sleeper that some enterprising lad might have used to create a bridge across the drain to the other side.  I’m quite impressed with the results.  Pitty my photography is not up to capturing the scene.

My Kyogle Loop before I started work.

The Drain is in, after the scenery was cut away and plaster added to form the new shape.

Scenery completed and everything in.  Just waiting for the glue to dry around the rocks in the drain.

Same shot from further out.

The shot after the handrails were added along with the chain wire fence panel.  Water is in the drain, and a sleeper added so someone can walk to the other side of the drain.

Same scene from the other angle.

Shot from further away.

Again taken from the other side and slightly further away.

Thanks to the original poster of the photo. 

Cassino Meakworks and the Brisbane Limited Set

On Thursday afternoon after I declared pens down from work, I had some time to apply the labels for the point numbers and the track names in Park Road Sidings.  I had planned on trying to do some modelling before I started work each day, but I could not get motivated.

On Friday I decided to do some work on my Brisbane Limited set.  I swapped the NR class for my new sound equipped Jumbo, so I could give it a run, and to have a more time appropriate loco for the train.

When trying to run my Jumbo out of Acacia Ridge Yard to get it to my Brisbane Limited set, which had been in Glenapp Loop for the last few weeks, the points at the southern end of the Acacia Ridge Yard would not change from the control panel.  I’d push the buttons, I’d see the input light in the Mini Panel signifying that it received a logic input, but I did not get anything happening to the points.  But when I selected the individual point addresses, they moved.  So evidently, something is wrong with my Mini Panel.  That is the first time I’ve had an issue with one of these devices.  Another problem to fix.

The Brisbane Limited set runs like a bag of sh!t.  There is no play in the bogies, for any sideways and up and down movement.  The set has fantastic detail and is probably OK for the plonkers who do rounders a flat layout on a 8’ x 4’ boards, or even a club layout.  But other modellers who have track that goes up hill and and down dale will also have issues just like me.  My layout rises up over 700 mm and constantly changes grade.

One of the places I was having issues, was on the mainline in the Cassino Meatworks Siding.  Every wagon derailed.  That was not acceptable.  One wheel would lift off the track on a curve and the wagons would derail.  I'd rerail it and the next wagon would do the same thing at the same location.  Every other wagon I have negotiates this location.

For starters I decided to rip up the mainline track through Cassino Meat Works, and went and purchased a new length of track from Aurora Trains to relay it.  The issue I have is that the track has some rocking of the rails (Super elevation) and the modern Auscision carriages absolutely hate doing that. 

Ripping up the ballast and the track was quite a quick process and that was completed on Friday.  So the track was relayed on Saturday morning and I then I did a few laps of the layout with my Brisbane Limited set.  That set is just a PITA.  The bogies do not pivot enough to handle the curves and also any unevenness of the track, like super elevation.  So this is what I did to the bogies.  I drilled out the central bogie pivot slightly - like counter sinking the wagon end.  I had previously filed the bogie post to be narrower so that the bogies has some small amount of play.  The rear end of the coupler bracket either side of the retaining screw at the end of the wagons, underneath the bogies was filed down/cut away slightly) to give the bogies a little bit more swivel movement.  At the other end of the bogie, I cut out two floor based gussets at each end of the wagon to again ensure that the bogies could swivel and tilt just a slight amount more.

The Cassino Meatworks Crossing Loop with the mainline ripped up.

A slightly closer picture of the northern end of the Siding.

The same for the southern end of the siding

The after photo of the Cassino Meatworks Crossing Loop.  The track had been relaid.

A close up of the southern end of the loop after relaying.

A closer up of the northern end of the Loop after being relaid.

So today I have now run the train from Cassino, to Acacia Ridge, and then back to Grafton Yard and the consist is now sitting in Grafton Yard track 1 ready to continue its path.  The train now runs very well.  It would have been great to run that way out of the box.

Today when the train was in Acacia Ridge Yard, I ran through track 1.  The train stopped dead.  It was then that I realised that the last operating session there was an issue with that track.  I could not get my train to move.  A little bit of problem solving showed that It was a dry solder joint on the track feeder.  So the joint where the outer rail feeders for tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 all join the track bus, was hit with solder again, and all is now good.

At this point I also decided to try the control panel for Acacia Ridge Yard again.  This time I pressed the buttons and a point fired.  I also unplugged and plugged the cab bus back into the Mini Panel.  So what ever the problem was, it is now solved.

One of the issues I had with the running, was that Kyogle Loop was occupied, with a CPH railmotor on the Loop and an over length container on the Main.  Just a slight problem for passing the Brisbane Limited set at this location.  So I moved the CPH into the siding behind my railset train.  That freed up a track, so that then allowed me to do a saw tooth operation on the container when the Brisbane Limited Set made its way into loop.  

After all the running.  I also got the "water" making compound that I use out and hit the various water puddles that I have on the layout and gave then another once over.  I think they came up quite well.

Getting Bored at Home or Lack of Motivation Returns

Well this week has been the start of our working from home from place of employment.  When I sit in the home office for 8 hours a day, I do not feel like sitting in the same office for another hour at night and do my private email, check out blogs and other model railway activities.  I am one of the lucky ones in our society that still has a job to do and I can undertake it from home.  So to me, while keeping generally out of the way of society, in self isolation, it does not feel much different to the normal go to work situation.  I do not have much more time on my hands, but I do save about 2 hours each day in travel time that has been recouped.  Some of that time, is being transferred into a walk around the neighbourhood every second day after work has completed.  But that might pick up to everyday this week, if I can talk my kids into coming with me for company.

At this point in time, I am not getting motivated to do any modelling activities.  Although yesterday I cut up a single strip of 0.047” x 0.047” styrene into 24mm lengths and then painted them a wood colour.  That was it for the whole day.  Don't want to over do this activity thing.

Today all I did was enter the shed, look around, and decide to cut up some coloured electrical tape to half complete 4 more control panels.  These were the Narrow Gauge entry panel at Fisherman Islands, the two panels at Park Road Sidings (one each end), and the rather large panel at South Brisbane Interstate.  While all the track has been laid in the coloured electrical tape, I have not added any words like Main, Loop, or the siding numbers, or point numbers to the panels.  I might get around to this activity during the next week.

It did dawn on me during the last week, that I do have a number of projects that have been started, that have been shelved.  Some of these were started over 2 years ago.  I even have one house I started building I think over 20 years ago that does not yet have a roof.  So some of these projects might be restarted over the next period of stay at home activity.  Maybe I can schedule about 30 minutes of model railway activity before I start the work day, or even straight after I complete the work day.  We will see what this week brings.  It is a long weekend so I'm sure to do something in the shed.